Life is slowly returning to normal here. Businesses are reopening, leisure centre is up and running (yay). The only covid cases we're getting in Western Australia are those people returning from overseas and they go into immediate hotel quarantine. We've run out of contaminated cruise ships but there was recently a livestock carrier with a stricken crew from the middle east. State borders are still closed and will remain that way for some time I suspect.

I think Trump is slowly being recognised for the narcissistic coward he is but he's also a bully and it just depends whether the American people will let themselves be dictated to. I suspect they can only be pushed so far...

I just hate the way he blames everyone else. And how about hiding behind the bible? I'm not a religious person but I have to admire this bishop:
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington said that she is "outraged" after President Donald Trump visited her church without advance notice to share "a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus."
I just want the world to know, that we in the diocese of Washington, following Jesus and his way of love ... we distance ourselves from the incendiary language of this President. We follow someone who lived a life of nonviolence and sacrificial love."
"We align ourselves with those seeking justice for the death of George Floyd and countless others," she continued.
https://www.9news.com.au/world/donald-trump-criticised-by-bishop-of-washington-church-after-protesters-teargassed/f923de99-b7c9-4e73-95d8-adce3fec8955

The lockdown/social distancing/increased hygiene measures here has also had an influence on other contagions:
"The figure represents a 99 per cent decrease in flu cases over the past four weeks compared to the same time last year when WA was entering a record-breaking flu season and reported 1653 positive cases.
When compared to a more typical year (2018), the most recent figures still represent an 88 per cent drop in cases.
Reported gastroenteritis cases in the past month were also down by more than half compared to this time last year, with 333 cases presenting to hospital over the past four weeks compared to 728 in 2019.
And chickenpox cases were down by 66 per cent to just three cases since April 20."
https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/wa-flu-gastro-cases-down-to-record-low-levels-as-social-distancing-prevents-more-than-just-covid-19-20200522-p54vnf.html

Hong Kong was the biggie, -5.6%.
"Chinese officials have announced plans to impose sweeping new laws on Hong Kong after last year's pro-democracy unrest, the implications of which activists say could be "deadly dangerous" and a "knockout blow" for Hong Kong's one country, two systems deal with China."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-22/china-to-propose-national-security-legislation-for-hong-kong/12274202?section=business

Had quite a few buy signals on speculative stocks when I trawled through charts on weekend. Most of the picks gapped up on open and never looked back. Sighed and went out and did some gardening .. The waiting game.

I think the current hypothesis is that ARBs could enhance COVID-19 reactions:
"The connection between ARBs and COVID-19
Professor Murray Esler is the senior director of the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute and consultant cardiologist at the Alfred Hospital Melbourne and Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Monash University.
Professor Esler told newsGP he first became concerned about ARBs and COVID-19 when talking to his daughter, a public health physician in the Northern Territory, a few weeks ago.
‘The first clue was really that severe COVID-19 infection was more common in hypertension, and hypertensive patients are really not predisposed to infection at all, so that was very odd,’ he said.
‘So that suggested perhaps this predisposition to severe COVID-19 infection in hypertension could possibly be a drug effect mediated by ARBs which upregulates ACE-2, and potentially predisposes to infectivity but also in particular, severe infection.’
Professor Esler has been in contact with colleagues in Lombardy, Italy, who are currently exploring it further."
https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/ace-inhibitors-arbs-and-covid-19-what-gps-need-to

Yes I would have gone with that too .. still, it does say "preliminary result".
No covid 19 cases in hospital in my state so elective surgery will crank up as from next week. Library opens Monday but gym is staying closed as it is in a major aquatic centre with netball courts etc so not worth opening when only 20 people allowed in at any one time.